


You Are Cordially Invited

by yuletide_archivist



Category: 30 Rock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:37:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz is forced to attend Jack's annual Christmas Eve potluck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Cordially Invited

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Raisintorte

 

 

Liz Lemon can't cook.

Okay, okay. She can cook a little. She can _heat_ things, certainly. She can boil pasta and then heat sauce from a jar. She can grate decent Parmigiano-Reggiano over the mound of linguine. It's fine. She's not a total disaster. 

And she can bake cookies if she has to. There's a recipe right on the back of the bag of chocolate chips. It's not an impossible mission. 

But she can't... _cook_. Not really. She's never home, and cooking is hard, and she's lazy, and she works 18 hour days and-- 

And Jack Donaghy invited her to his traditional Christmas Eve potluck dinner and dance. 

"...and _dance_?" She asked blankly, when Jonathan hand-delivered her invitation, letter-press printed on heavy rag paper, the formality of the font completely destroying any sense of casual cheer the wording was supposed to impart.

"Yes, and dance," Jonathan said. He looked stressed out. "Mr. Donaghy likes to include an activity. Last year it was a potluck dinner and Scrabble tournament. The year before that it was a potluck dinner and writing letters to white-collar criminals in minimum-security prisons. The year before that--" 

"Got it," Liz said. "You okay there, Jonathan? You look a little tense." 

He frowned at her. "Fine, thank you. As to the dish you'll be bringing, please be aware that Mr. Donaghy would strongly prefer it if you were to bring a home-cooked chicken dish of some kind." 

"I thought it was pot _luck_ ," Liz said. "Can't I just bring some hummus?" 

Jonathan glared at her. "Home-cooked chicken. Of some kind. Perhaps you'll want to bring something with a Bourbon glaze. But Mr. Donaghy leaves that up to you." 

He gave her the stink eye at the end, leaving Liz with the definite impression that under no circumstances was she to bring anything that wasn't chicken with a Bourbon glaze.

"Blergh," Liz said.

She headed back to her office and Googled "really easy bourbon-glazed chicken". 

_A very easy weeknight dish. First, pound four chicken breasts thin...._ the first link started. Liz snapped her laptop shut decisively and called out into the writer's room.

"Does anyone know any good caterers?" 

*** 

The night before the party, Jonathan called at 10:30 PM with outfit suggestions. 

"I know what "festive casual" means," Liz said. "Are you seriously calling everyone Jack invited to be sure they dress right?" 

There was a heavy silence on the other end of the line. As it dawned on her, she gasped--

"You only called ME!" 

"Mr. Donaghy just wanted to be sure there wouldn't be any repeats of what happened at his Black and White Ball." 

Liz flopped back on her couch. Everything about this was turning into a nightmare. No date, forced to spend eighty dollars on Bourbon-glazed chicken from a fancy caterer, having to spend the night watching Republicans dance... 

"No one could have known you weren't supposed to combine black and white in the same outfit," she told him. She had really liked that checker-board dress with chess pieces stamped on it. It wasn't nice of Jack's friends to snicker, either. 

Another heavy silence from Jonathan.

"Ugh," Liz sighed. "Fine! Tell me what to wear. I'm walking over to my closet right now." 

*** 

"Is that what you're wearing?" Jenna asked, eyeing Liz' outfit. ("Festive casual" apparently meant a black dress with a jewel-toned evening-suitable cardigan over it, and closed-toe shoes. Jonathan had allowed for the wearing of slingbacks... if she felt she could pull it off. "I'll wear pumps," she said. "Probably a good idea," Jonathan said.) 

"Yeah," Liz sighed. "I look like I'm visiting Great-Aunt Mabel at the home. And then I had to put this stupid eighty-dollar chicken into a casserole dish, to make it look like I made it myself."

Jenna looked at her blankly. "You own a casserole dish?" 

"79.99 at Williams-Sonoma," Liz said, sadly. "This handy Keep-Warm Carrying Tote was extra." 

"How much extra?"

"You don't want to know."

"Oh, _Liz_ \--!" 

"I know. But I have to go. So I'll just walk in, pretend I made this chicken from my imaginary family recipe, drink egg nog for an hour, and come home." 

"We appreciate your sacrifices on behalf of _TGS_ ," Jenna said, saintly. 

Liz looked at her. "And what are you going to be doing?" 

Jenna looked around and lowered her voice. "It's two-for-one Monday at Le Bar Beaute. There's this roaming masseur, Josef... his fingers tend to slip a little when he's doing your lower back." 

Liz looked at her, appalled. "Don't tell me that--"

"And he's Romanian. Mmmm, the accent..." 

"Stop talking!" 

"--he kind of _sniffs_ your neck, which--" 

Liz walked away. 

*** 

Jack's apartment is full of rich white people, most of them middle-aged. There are a few trophy wives who are younger than Liz, but they're all in a corner talking about, she assumes, thousand-dollar purses. Or lowlights. The rest of the people make Liz feel positively sprightly. 

"Ah, Lemon," Jack says, when she enters. "I see you're a fan of the _Le Creuset_ Keep-Warm Tote? I've used it for years." 

Liz smiles. "Oh, yes. Me too. This is my... my _third_ one, actually. That's why it's so clean and new-looking. Which it totally isn't."

Jack isn't really listening. Luckily.

"Just put it over there, Lemon!" 

There's a long table set up in front of the windows. _So other rich people can see the spread and feel pangs of jealousy,_ Liz uncharitably assumes. And then she realizes that Jack's apartment is the penthouse, and no one can see in.

"Did you bring a card?" Jack asks. 

Just before launching into an explanation of how she actually had her Christmas card sent to his office, Liz notices the little cards in front of the various dishes on the long table: _Louisa's Figgy Pudding_ , _Grandfather Hiram's Yankee Hash_. She hopes someone got honest and wrote _Martha Stewart's Bullshit Quince Jam_. 

"Don't worry," Jack says. "I think Jonathan... Jonathan!" 

From out of nowhere, she'd swear, his assistant fades into existence. Jack notes her amazement.

"It's impressive, isn't it? GE conducts a biannual workshop on advanced lurking for high-level executive assistants." 

"I'll say," Liz says, duly impressed. Jonathan looks down, modestly, then hands Liz a card and a fountain pen. He takes the Keep-Warm Tote from her and deftly extracts the casserole. 

Liz hesitates. What the heck is she supposed to call this? _La Rousse Catering Overpriced Bourbon Chicken_? _I Could Be Home On My Couch Right Now Fowl_? _I Wish I Was Drunk On The Bourbon Used In This Dish Casserole_ , maybe...

She looks up to see Jack watching her. She flushes, feeling caught. 

"Why the hesitation, Lemon? Forgot what the recipe is called?"

"Oh, er. Heh. You know how it is, I make this so often I don't even remember the name! In my family we just call it--" she reaches, desperately, and comes up with: "--Booze Bird." 

His eyebrows go up. His immaculate hair moves just a touch, indicating vast, vast dismay. 

"No, no," he says.

"Right," she agrees. "Or! The formal name is Lemon Bourbon Chicken Casserole, so I could just-- yeah." 

"Is there lemon in it?" Jack asks.

"No," she says, forlorn. He sighs, loudly, managing to give the sound very strong (or so she is convinced) _For heaven's sake, Lemon-!_ tones. 

"Well, I'll leave you to mingle. Be sure to try my dishes," Jack says. "They're around here somewhere. Old family recipes. Irish stuff, of course. Potato and leek soup.... corned beef and cabbage... and an amazing soda bread pudding. You wouldn't think it could be done, but you'd be wrong." 

Liz smiles weakly. She doesn't even know what soda bread _is_ , let alone why you couldn't turn it into pudding. 

"And of course," he says, magnanimously, "I'll try to remember to have a bite of your little bourbon chicken, all right?" 

Liz, who has just discovered an entirely new area in which to feel inadequate, watches Jack walk off to talk to a man with a magnificent shock of white hair. Liz squints. Is that the president of _Iceland_ \--? 

"I've put your Keep-Warm Tote in the cloak room," Jonathan says, reappearing.

"Of course you have," Liz says. "I'm surprised he doesn't have a special Keep-Warm Tote hall, though. To be honest. A little disappointed."

Jonathan frowns at her.

*** 

Liz is hiding in the kitchen, eating a handful of olives she found in the refrigerator. The nice thing about a potluck at a rich person's house is that the kitchen is deserted. No hired help whipping up deviled quail eggs or anything. 

She pokes around the room, opening cabinets here and there, marveling at how _clean_ , how _organized_ , how _beautiful_ everything is. The spice cabinet is sorted alphabetically, the spices in little hand-labeled jars with glass stoppers. 

Liz has to look for a trash can for five minutes before she finds it (it's built in to the center island. A hidden drawer pulls out.) so she can throw away her olive pits. 

And then she gasps. 

Loudly. Right there, in the trash, are three big crumpled foil catering boxes with neatly printed labels on them. 

_Dennehy's Kitchen Potato and Leek Soup_

_Dennehy's Kitchen Corned Beef and Cabbage_

_Dennehy's Kitchen Soda Bread Pudding_

"Oh _really_ ," Liz says. She drops the pits in the trash and marches back out into the living room. Jack is near the 7-foot Christmas tree, talking to, surprise, a middle-aged white man. 

"Hi," she says. "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm about to try some of your amazing soda bread pudding!" 

"...good," Jack says. He looks at the middle-aged white man. "Sorry, Warren. Lemon is in _television_."

"Ah," the middle-aged white man says.

"I hope your bread pudding is as good as the soda bread pudding from Dennehy's Kitchen," she interrupts, giving Jack a significant look.

She swears she can see him blanch. 

"Excuse me," he tells the middle-aged white man, and then he marches her back into the kitchen. "Spill it, Lemon. What do you know?" 

Silently, she pushes the hidden button that opens the trash drawer.

"Ah," Jack says.

" _Ah_ ," Liz agrees. "It'd be a shame of people knew about this, wouldn't you say?" 

"I would," he says. "I would indeed. All right, Lemon. Name your price." 

She considers. She could ask for a raise. Better hours. More staff. An espresso machine for the writer's room. 

"You eat my Bourbon Chicken and tell people how amazing it is," she says.

He stares at her, weighing how serious she is. Finally, he nods, extends a hand.

"Deal, Lemon."

They shake on it. As they leave the kitchen: 

"... _is_ it amazing?" He asks.

"It is if you know what's good for you, Donaghy." 

"Hmmm," Jack says. "You're a worthy opponent, Lemon."

Liz eats some of Dennehy's Kitchen really very good potato-leek soup and watches with great pleasure as Jack eats a full plate of Bourbon Chicken.

"It's a family secret," she tells the wives sent over to ask for the recipe for this chicken dish their husbands would like to eventually impress Jack Donaghy with. "You understand. Only my husband will ever know..." 

"Happy?" Jack asks, an hour later, as she's collected her coat and her Keep-Warm Tote. (Jonathan has explained that the casserole will be sent separately via messenger.) 

"Merry Christmas," Liz smiles. He squeezes her hand too hard, shaking goodbye. 

"Merry Christmas." He lowers his voice. "What's this I hear, that only those who marry into the Lemon line may know the secret...?" 

"Merry Christmas," Liz repeats, and heads for the elevator. 

"Lemon," she just hears. "Well played--" 

And then the doors close.

~fin~ 

 


End file.
